tune.

Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all
the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral;
but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to.

So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy
got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king
sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called it,
and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their
mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them
niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other,
and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they
hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the
town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor
miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks and crying;
and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and
tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no account and the
niggers would be back home in a week or two.

The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out
flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the
children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he
bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell you
the duke was powerful uneasy.

Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and
the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look
that there was trouble. The king says:

"Was you in my room night before last?"

"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but
our gang warn't around.

"Was you in there yisterday er last night?"

"No, your majesty."

"Honor bright, now--no lies."

"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been
a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed it
to you."

The duke says:

"Have you seen anybody else go in there?"

"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe."

"Stop and think."

I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says:

"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times."

Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever
expected it, and then like they HAD. Then the duke says:

"What, all of them?"

"No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't thin